A new slogan: Think locally, act locally

I was talking to a friend of mine who works at getting funding for a small social service entity, one that asks big donors to fund a lot of little things, like homeless shelters and refuges for battered women. He (or she) really doesn’t want to be identified, because it might interfere with her (or his) ability to secure cash.

Let’s call that person Lee.

Lee spends a lot of time trying to get money from tech moguls, because, duh, they have it. And the moguls are not ungenerous, or at least not anymore. That old social myopia has mutated into a commitment to charity. And they have a lot of money, so they can give away an amount that seems huge to a worthy nonprofit but is utterly meaningless to them, a percent of a percent of their net worth.

But here’s the problem: Tech guys evaluate charities the way they evaluate anything else they plan to start or buy. They ask about scalability — if I give this group a lot of money, can it ramp up its services?

And they ask about outcomes — is the benefit to society quantifiable? Can you prove that you’ve made a difference? Show me data. Show me projections five years out. Forget anecdotal evidence; I want metrics.

In some cases, that approach works splendidly. Take, for example, mosquito nets for Africa. Is it scalable? You bet it is. If a million nets can make a difference, then 10 million nets can make a much bigger difference. Analysis of public health data can demonstrate the effectiveness of the program — number of malaria cases down, people lead longer lives, everyone wins.

I have nothing against mosquito nets. Let me make that perfectly clear.

But other cases are different. Arts groups, for instance. A dance collective in San Francisco is not suddenly going to start 18 franchised dance collectives in select metropolitan areas. An artist may not make better art with your money, although she may have more time to make it.

And the benefit to society of an arts group is not quantifiable. It’s all subjective. A dance class taught to disadvantaged children will not make them richer or healthier, at least not demonstrably. It is possible to link an appreciation of beauty to a more just society, but it’s not really measurable.

Beauty yields beauty; beauty ennobles. I believe that to be true, but I can’t prove it.

That’s also the problem with services to the homeless and to battered women. These are intractable problems. Homelessness is not going to go away in anyone’s lifetime. More homes or apartments or hotel rooms will help; food and clothing will alleviate suffering.

But is it scalable? Not much. You could build more low-income housing, but that wouldn’t solve the problem, because the problem doesn’t really have a solution. You could build more mental institutions (which is what the state should do), but that will not at all solve the problem of mental illness.

And many cultures actually condone the practice of battering women. It is considered a man’s right, even his duty, to discipline his wife, his daughters, even women on the street guilty of real or imagined crimes. We will always have rage. Nothing will change that.

There are no hopeful metrics.

There is homelessness in Silicon Valley, a fair amount of it. San Jose a few months ago booted 200 or more homeless people from a strip of unused land they had been inhabiting. They didn’t just disappear; contrary to popular belief, the homeless are not generally drifting waifs. They have ties to the community, mothers or brothers or friends. They often had homes until something pushed them over the edge.

And poor families in homes are often just hanging on, too, living week to week in substandard hovels. And every day there are women seeking sanctuary. Shelters are not really scalable; you can get more case workers, and you can relieve misery, but you can’t export the housing to St. Louis. That’s up to St. Louis.

The local disadvantaged are largely ignored by Silicon Valley because fighting poverty is not sexy or cutting edge. New technology will not help. But compassion is always an option; helping your neighbor has long been viewed as a good idea.

The poor are right there, in the communities where tech companies have their glossy campuses and where tech executives live, often quite opulently. And yet the idea that a company has some obligation to the area that nurtures it does not seem to be catching on.

Tech executives get so many pleas for help; it’s one of the burdens of being rich. How their money is allocated depends on certain criteria, and “is it happening next door?” is not one of them. There’s a hallowed tradition of civic responsibility, of doing good for the people you pass by as your driverless car takes you on your optimal commute, but that idea has little resonance in the halls of tech.

So it would be good if the priorities could be rearranged. How can we make that happen?

She could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children. “How should I know?” said Alice, surprised at jcarroll@sfchronicle.com

Jon Carroll has been a San Francisco Chronicle columnist for 35 years. Before that he was a magazine editor. He's won awards doing both things. He writes about cats, politics, children, religion, more cats, travel, word games and strange, almost unknowable things. He was born in Los Angeles of hardy native stock.